Apollo's Arrow
by Jilly-chan
Summary: Spoilers through KLG2. Lee POV. Helo. Starbuck. “Some things are bigger than me, okay?” Kara’s voice rang coldly.


Apollo's Arrow

By Jillian

(Disclaimer: Characters not mine. Spoilers through all of season one. Much thanks to banthafodder and hercircumstance for the beta's… and they are not to be held responsible for my subsequent laziness. This probably isn't the most solid fic I've written as I've chosen which post KLG issues I wanted to answer and which ones I didn't, but it contains an idea that I couldn't quite shake without putting it into words… Enjoy.)

* * *

A museum piece, the arrow measured roughly two feet long, barely sharp at the point and made of tarnished gold. Starbuck had obeyed the religious whim of her President, risked her life and brought back an historic relic. "And for what?" Lee Adama had to ask himself.

They had put it on a crimson cloth under a glass case that had originally been intended to house Galactica souvenirs, key chains, model kits and other trinkets. Those items had since disappeared only to show up in late night card games as collateral for a lack of worthwhile contraband.

"What this thing needs," a familiar voice entertained the otherwise silent prayer room, "Is a bow."

"I could have been praying," Lee said pointedly standing from his previous kneeling position so that he didn't have to look up at Kara Thrace for long. He didn't want to give her more reasons to fuel her constant mirth at finding herself on a superior footing. Her humor was as rotten as the Sagitta plague and just as contagious. He bit his lower lip to fight back the reflex to smile.

"Praying?" Kara let her eyelids droop as she tilted her head back, examining him like she might have fluidly judged the distance of her next Raider target. She let her tongue loose from her lips in a characteristic display that her decision had been made, "Nope. You don't trust the gods enough to talk to them like that."

"Sure, and you know everything about my personal faith," Lee felt himself becoming defensive, even his shoulder muscles became noticeably tense at the tightness of his jaw around the words.

"Can't see what isn't there," Kara said lightly, her frankness hinging on a wary subject between them. Lee refrained from pursuing the conversation. He drew short at offending the gods as if they might suddenly wake up and care about such things as profanity and prayer. And purpose and prophecy and planets of origin.

Lee had dismissed his doubts regarding Earth when he saw the hope his father had given an entire generation of people. Lee instinctively doubted, but he knew better than to squash feebly won hope.

Faith was one of Kara's more charming vulnerabilities. Except when it took her away from him.

"Did you come to pray?" He asked, looking around the small, dark room. One wall lit by a diagonal pattern of lights served as a focus point for the only chapel on Galactica. The Arrow sat on display just under the lights, before it a kneeling bench and then a few chairs for meditators or those wanting to read the scriptures.

She rolled her shoulders and finished by a clicking of her jaw, a sure sign that a Starbuck lie was about to be delivered, "Nah, I just wanted to see it again. I can't figure out how it's much use."

"That's why I was here," Lee glanced down at it again, "Wondering why you thought it was so important to risk your life."

"Some things are bigger than me, okay?" Kara's voice rang coldly, "Like you and your little mutiny."

"Yeah," Lee couldn't look at her, "So I got the President freed and you brought her the arrow. And we're none the wiser how to get to Earth." He wheezed inaudibly over the last word.

"When your father is recovered," Kara started but when Lee swiveled and trapped her gaze she stopped. When Lee took the run to attack the Cylon base on the Trillium asteroid, they had indulged in argument with every feeling put out bare and covered in nettles that tore the nearly tangible fabric of their friendship. This time, however, Lee wasn't ready to share.

How could he be sure? Why did the lines of blame have to be drawn and redrawn to the threshold of Kara's indiscretion? If she hadn't left, then who would have made the nuclear run on the Cylon battleship? Would they have ever discovered that their Boomer had been a Cylon? But the questions didn't have answers and he didn't like following the trail of what could have been.

And without understanding faith, Lee was doubly sure that he was far from comprehending forgiveness.

* * *

"Nothing like a spot of violence to loosen up the brain cells, eh, sir?" Karl Agathon, better known on board Galactica as Helo, was not particularly light on his feet but he liked to bounce on them. Moreover, the devil-may-care grin on his face certainly did not betray the fact that this lieutenant had spent nearly two months as the last man left living on Caprica.

Lee wondered if the other man was quite all right. Isolated, his only companion a Cylon replica of his Galactica compatriot, whom he impregnated, and on the least percentage of possibilities just happened to be in the exact location of the exact object that Kara had disobeyed orders to retrieve earning a special flight back home.

"Are you sure about this?" Lee circled the taller man, speaking through the mouthpiece that was supposed to protect his teeth. His jaw remembered the unexpected contact with his father's glove. He pushed the thought to the side and instead wondered how Helo could manage so many smiles through his equipment.

Helo rolled his shoulders in a shrug and brusquely put his chin to one side, nearly imitating Kara so perfectly that Lee was caught off guard when he felt the first friendly tap of Helo's right swing to his shoulder.

"Maybe I should be asking you that?" Helo pulled back and loosed his neck with a touch of either ear to the corresponding shoulder. Lee fought back the swelling of frustration to react to such familiar tone and body language by reminding himself that Helo was not Kara. Any two people would adopt reminiscent physical movement who spent as much time together as Helo and Kara would as fellow soldiers. Nonetheless, Helo's fight was without proper form, and more playful. Like he stepped into fights, neither starting nor finishing them.

Control. Lee pulled a few of his punches, recognizing that Helo hadn't opened up his strength. The CAG should demonstrate the level of skill expected from his subordinates. Was Helo simply deferring to his rank? Or was Helo testing him?

Lee started to sweat. He'd felt the coursing heat start behind his ears and work down his neck.

"I've heard around that only one person has ever put you down in a fair fight, sir," This time Lee only heard Helo. Kara never issued that level of genuine curiosity and admiration into a sentence for him. When Lee didn't answer with words, Helo laughed, "Oh, that's going to bruise."

Lee heard the laugh, he also was aware of the intimate distance. Lee had accepted the invitation to spar and the cruelty of the nearness, the contact, and the inches of padding behind each unbridled cut of the fist and the tongue. Each round had been an invitation to unpack the walls.

Lee Adama realized that Helo was watching very closely. This wasn't a simple contest of rank and skill.

The fight dissolved in mutual quiet and stillness. Lee found a bench against the near wall and sank down to sit on it, shaking out the wet from his hair. He heard Helo tossing things into the equipment bin for cleaning before the next recreational community usage.

"I wonder if I didn't have a freedom of sorts when I was back on Caprica," Helo spoke, demonstrating a thoughtfulness behind his now subdued vigor, "I was responsible for myself, and, gods, if that wasn't terrifying. But, not having to answer to anyone for my actions. I'd forgotten how that felt."

Lee listened, his head lolled back to rest against the wall and he breathed through his mouth.

"I'll tell you the truth, sir," Helo could make the formality sound respectful and casual with an optimistic lilt, "I worked with Sharon, Boomer, that Cylon, for years without touching her once. I was the master of discretion when it came to those feelings. Didn't hurt that they have rules about those things," Helo chuckled, and Lee found himself responding, too weary to resist the straightforwardness, "But put a man, alone, in a life or death situation. Add in the copy," the story telling floundered for a moment losing its momentum. Then Helo picked up, "Add in the copy of the woman I loved and all taboos are moot."

"Is that how you feel now?" Lee spoke as if for the first time. He seldom found himself intrinsically liking another person, but Helo's personable initiative had managed to find a way to wind his way behind the barriers.

"Tell you the truth?" Helo said again dropping down to sit next to Lee shoulder to shoulder. Lee realized that his walls weren't the only ones being lowered.

"Only if you trust me," Lee let the words loose intending them to be reassuring to Helo, instead the promise stuck in his gut worse than any of Helo's punches. Making friends during a time of war always brought a different flavor to fighting.

"Feelings are frakked up, Apollo," Lee felt movement and then realized that Helo was bent over to help unlace the gloves he'd yet to remove, "But what are we if we don't have our feelings? Toasters?" Then Lee's hand felt air, released from its restraint.

Lee knew why Helo reminded him of Kara. Both of them were searching for the same thing. Comprehending humanity in the context of Cylons. Once again, Lee felt inadequate.

But this time, he heard himself vocalize it, "What are we if we don't have forgiveness?"

Lee let his chin fall forward and Helo was watching him with somber admiration that started to crack over the eternal smile underneath, "What indeed?" Helo chewed on his lip.

* * *

For all of his unique charisma, Helo faithfully and unawares mimicked the physical mannerisms of his closest friends. Lee recalled small things from the first evening that they had tried boxing together. Then, in a mechanical briefing to update the pilots as to the new Cylon stealth devices, Lee noticed that Helo was propping up his head with his left hand, just like Starbuck next to him. Except that Helo appeared to be listening while Starbuck was obviously fighting the need to doze.

"Right," Lee ended abruptly, "That'll be all. Study the functional diagrams all you want, as they'll be in the hall for the rest of the daily cycle."

Helo sat upright, his brow furrowed in a passable look of unease at the unexpected conclusion of the droll lecture. The Lieutenant noticed Starbuck nodding off and slapped her near shoulder.

Lee finished straightening his papers and began a fast trot toward the exit. It might look like an attempt to escape, and, if it were Helo telling the truth, it was exactly that.

"Apollo. Apollo, sir,"

Helo must have started to suspect something was off with the CAG, and Lee felt his neck sinking as his shoulders rose. Hiding was going to be impossible. He had chosen to avoid conflict once he started to hear specific rumors. Rumors about Helo and Starbuck and their late evenings in the chapel seeking privacy, of who knew what sort. He cringed. He could handle ambiguous animosity with Kara. He had come to enjoy the jocular athletics with Helo. Some things about his friends, he would rather not know.

"Sir?"

And the frakking way that Helo made 'sir' sound like it contained some measure of affection.

"Excuse me, sir," Helo had caught up to him, and Lee found an arm, palm braced against the wall, barring his forward path, "I don't think you heard me calling after you."

"That's not the truth," Lee said accusingly. Helo said he liked to keep things upfront and Lee gargled over the perceived inconsistency even though he knew it was shallow.

"So you did hear me?" Helo tilted his head back, while still managing to loom.

"Please get out of my way," Lee turned to keep his head and posture poised to move onward down the hall.

"I had some new intel I wanted to report to my CAG," Helo didn't change his posture, although the intimidation of his presence was starting to rile new and different levels of discomfort.

Just then, Helo pushed forward clumsily and bodily knocking Lee into the wall. Helo only just caught himself with his other arm before falling into his Captain. Lee bristled but was too surprised to speak before they both heard a taunting refrain,

"Be careful, Captain Apollo. Helo's completely without any discrimination, Cylons or gender," She waved her hand at them in one slow motion without turning and managed to taunt them with every surefooted swagger of her hips.

Lee closed his eyes and sighed heavily. Starbuck's humor flourished on his proportional potential for humiliation. However, it was something he was used to.

"Lieutenant Helo, I apologize," Lee opened his eyes and Helo stood at a distanced and wary attention a few feet away, "You had something you wanted to tell me?"

"Well," Helo seemed to collect his thoughts as if he hadn't been confident for the opportunity to share them in the first place, "Perhaps," He glanced up and down the now emptied hall, "Perhaps I should start by saying that while Starbuck and I might have had a bit of a past, that if you've heard anything recently, I tell you the truth, I've been absolutely hands off."

"As well you should," Lee said lamely.

"As well I should," Helo repeated ending in an amused laugh, "Okay, whatever. But Kara and I were talking one evening and started to put together bits of a story we remembered somewhat. I knew that if I could think about it long enough, I'd heard the stories of Apollo's Arrow before. And if the President's right about things, it might not be simple coincidence that you've earned your call sign, sir."

"So I simply have to go to Kobol and wave the Arrow around," Lee said, with half the sarcasm he would have used if Kara were telling him the story. Helo seemed so genuinely pleased with the discovery that Lee almost felt obligated to listen.

"Actually, Apollo uses it to ultimately defeat the Cyclopes. Or the Cylons in this case," Helo recounted becoming more and more at ease as evident in the enthusiasm of his knowledge.

"So it's a secret weapon?" Lee remembered Kara's off hand comment in the chapel, "Don't I need a bow for that?"

"If the arrow itself were the arrow," Helo suddenly became still, catching Lee's attention.

"What does that mean?"

Helo took his time before answering, and he turned his head to look down the path on which Starbuck had left, "Kara thought of it, sir. Why the Cylons were toying with me, I'm not entirely certain. But she has this theory, since the Arrow itself wasn't the only thing that she found on Caprica to retrieve."

"I don't follow?" Lee said interrupting, even though he could draw the conclusion.

"Things that have happened before, happening again?" Helo chewed his lip, and Lee caught himself doing the same thing. Then Helo spoke with a whimsical lilt, "I'm beginning to think that if we look hard enough at the past, we'll better understand what's happening to us now. If the Cyclops became the Toasters, why couldn't the Arrow become a person? I mean, the Arrow can't be the Arrow again if it were the Arrow before. And, here, I'm stuck on Caprica with absolutely no chance except that Starbuck jumps herself back to the exact spot where I'm waiting."

"Kara brings you back so that I could use you in order to mastermind my revenge on the Cylons?" Lee asked, feeling a bit out of sorts since Helo was able to drag Lee into such a line of thinking. Kara must have put the man up to it, knowing that Lee wouldn't have naturally entertained her scriptural interpretations.

"Well, we were still interpreting the bits after the revenge on the Cyclopes looking for the happy ending," Helo smiled brightly, as if indifferent to Lee's long-suffering with a deity as his call sign or blissfully choosing to ignore it. Lee didn't know whether to praise Helo for his impractical discoveries or berate him for falling into one of Kara's daydream schemes.

"I'll have to think on that one," Lee nodded once with a tight grin. He didn't need a prophecy to tell him that Helo was his loyal soldier. That was the truth. Still, "Has the Cylon said anything to reinforce your theories?"

"I wouldn't know, sir," Helo said, the cheerfulness fading.

* * *

The Cylon they knew on Galactica as Sharon had been dealt with according to precedent. Any diseased and dangerous machine was escorted to the nearest airlock with the President's complete blessing.

Until Starbuck had returned with another copy of Boomer.

Much shouting and emotional bribery had crossed that table. Until, it was decided to quarantine it, under constant guard, and with absolutely no contact with Lieutenant Karl Agathon. In the meantime, the Cylon would be allowed opportunity to provide her captors with any and all details of the Cylon strengths in order to promote the well being of humanity and the tactical profit of the military.

In Sharon's voice, the Cylon answered every question put to her. They only needed to know what to ask.

At least, that's what Lee was able to read from the transcript logs. He had still been half in the brig and half in the infirmary when Starbuck had returned from her jaunt to Caprica.

"Helo," Starbuck had put a hand on his shoulder, as much holding the man back as offering comfort, "I know how they get into your head. They tell you things about yourself. Frak, I've told you that I had one tell me we'd met before in another life. I don't know if this one had better pick up lines, and I'm sure she did, but the end result is the same."

Lee studied the stoic lines of Helo's jaw and cheek. In fact, the only visible movement from Helo in that moment was the slightly bulging vein that creased the near temple. Lee looked down at his feet not having an answer for what he knew Helo had to be feeling. In such a short time, Lee had come to consider Helo his friend. In turn, Lee knew what feeling corresponded with the concept of sympathy. Not politically affiliated sympathy, but gut raking sympathy.

The three of them were stationed just outside the one-way observation window looking into the pristine white cell of the Cylon that they all had known as Sharon. For all the crowding and dark of Galactica, the prison Lee looked in on was almost a heaven look-a-like haven. Appearances.

"I've come to terms with those feelings," Helo said half-heartedly, knowing his argument was thin when set against the decree of both the military and the domestic authorities, "History and proximity. When you take those away, how long does a feeling last?"

Lee concentrated on looking sternly at Helo. He did not internalize that question. He did not look at Kara.

"How long?" Helo asked again, but the flavor of the question had shifted as Helo looked from Lee to Kara and back at Lee again.

"I think we should get this line of questioning over with," Kara said somewhere in the distance and probably standing at the solid entrance of the fortified cell.

"Time to find out if these Cylons knew they had my Arrow back on Caprica or if they simply had no idea of your value," Lee tried to sound glib. Helo, for his part, seemed rather encouraged by the casual acknowledgement of his mythical import. Helo took to Kara's faith intuitively. Then he bonded it with Lee's appreciation for well-reasoned common sense. The sort of good man that thrived on a positive word from his CAG.

* * *

Years. Years later. Like the thin rash of grey hair threading upward from Helo's temples. Karl never fell under the stress emotionally, but time indulged itself in other fashions. The taller man always seemed to take the initiative when they jumped back to Caprica, walking a few steps ahead or talking over others. The planet greeted them with grey showers even as the countryside started to turn green in season.

The three of them were still on planet when Karl's arms threatened to crush Lee in a recklessly joyful embrace and half-spin. Even through the shared laughter, Lee found himself wondering about the man named Apollo. Because if the myth were real, and their victory was so unexpected and right, then was the feeling in Lee's heart the same feeling that Apollo had? And would it happen again? Would he become the legend for an Apollo to come?

Lee certainly could name what he was feeling in that moment. Would his story ensure anything for the future? He had bruised but tried friendship. Love. The reflections pulled him inward so that sound of the rain dulled in his ears and he stopped noticing the wet.

Just then, Kara fingers were rough against his face leaving designs on his black grease smeared checks as they stretched back to tangle into his hair, and eventually he lost even thought in the taste of her kiss.


End file.
